What Did You Do Last Week?

“What did you do last week?”, Elon Musk asked employees of the US Government. Many found the question to be patronizing, others found it to be revealing of an inefficient bureaucracy that needs reform and streamlining. This was the reason I left my position as a shoreside Electrical Engineer in 2022, in favor of a seagoing position as First Assistant Engineer. I was stuck in bureaucracy; I relied on other people to give me information, in order for me to analyze it and give recommendations to my supervisor. Oftentimes, I was waiting on the information from the field; or from supervisory decisions, which were made in a once-weekly committee. I feared that a performance review would leave the rater wondering what I was doing; instead, it was Elon Musk asking the question. I never got the email last week. I would have replied that “I activated an old cargo steamship for use by the US Navy”. I got something done last week. Venture capitalists (vulture capitalists) who perform, leveraged buyouts, Carl Icahn or Elon Musk, pride themselves on finding businesses with structural inefficiencies that they can correct, thereby releasing the full potential of its economic value. For example, Twitter (X) grew its workforce too fast, and found its headcount rife with what author David Graeber calls “BS jobs”. As the new owner, Elon Musk cut bureaucracy within the company, and applied shock treatment to its headcount, bringing it in line (and even less) with other tech companies of the same size. In reforming the civil service, a different approach must be used. The primary hallmarks of government employment are stability and public impact. Since the 1970s, federal employees have faced furloughs at every government shutdown. A private company would treat that period as a short-term layoff; however Congress has always proffered backpay in order to retain its workforce and keep the federal government’s role as a steady employer. Revoking work-from-home, at least on a temporary basis, is a good remedial step for a program that has become too gangly. Young federal employees feel disengaged when they can’t get facetime with mentors and supervisors. Shopping districts in suburban Washington, DC are suspiciously busy during core working hours. Falsified timecards are one of the ways to a quick removal from federal employment; pulling people back from the fire by bringing them back into the office, therefore, could be seen as a responsible act. It is also a soft form of a loyalty test: are you here with us hell and highwater, or are you a summer soldier? “Non sibi, sed patriae”: this is a Latin phrase which translate to “Not for myself, but for my country”. When federal hiring, in some agencies, has been about meeting minimum standards to fill seats, we lose the broader vision. One might call this “privilege” to think beyond the minutiae of “essential job functions”, but it is important to bring back a company culture to federal employment. Some of my neighbors in DC felt that we gave away the culture when the federal government ended defined-benefit pensions in the 1980s. I look to the Department of Defense, and its recent interest in the “warrior culture” (cue Jim Mattis and Pete Hegseth). In contrast are the bureaucrats who trained shiphandlers on CD ROMs (SWOS in a box) or impose byzantine policies that keep tradesmen from doing their jobs in a timely fashion. The “warrior culture” could be defined as “love of mission”, and at least for now, young people have been trickling back into recruiting offices for the armed forces. Ironically, soldiers do best when they are doing something; in peacetime, this includes innovative field exercises and humanitarian missions. Politically speaking, we understood that Trump and his supporters would want to “whack” the unelected bureaucrats who impose things like vaccine mandates. This was accomplished in high-profile firings. What I am concerned with is the across-the-board cuts in certain agencies, and among most first year (probationary) employees, which are taking place outside of the usual reduction-in-force plan. What I regret is the loss of a human touch. Would it really hurt the business objective if the Trump administration (the “You’re Fired” guy) to allow a few months’ lead time before layoffs, so that displaced employees can make suitable arrangements for their future employment, within the government or in the private sector?

Water Rescue on the Potomac

The plane crash hit close to home. I was a DC resident for the first 25 years of my life. The Air Florida plane wreck on the Potomac River in 1982 (78 fatalities, 5 survivors) was locked into local memory for a couple decades, I remember people still talking about it when I was a kid. In addition to geography, Home is also affinity. Airports are like seaports, in that it is an intricate transportation hub with different layers of personnel and job titles. There is big money involved, sometimes trickling down to employees as stock options and overtime pay. There are illegal drug shipments to be intercepted by law enforcement. With due respect to the frontline service workers, spending time behind the scenes, in the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority admin office, personified the airport as a living being, in contrast to the impersonal Disneyland environment of the main corridors. Home is also the causes we think about. Until recently, my parents’ condo was under the northward flight path on the Potomac River. These are just a couple holes in the “Swiss cheese” failure analysis model, but show a system at its limits: Politicians used the force of law to maintain flight schedules and frequencies above sound aeronautical principles and guidelines. Economic considerations led American Airlines to use the airport as a transfer hub, instead of nearby Baltimore, a focus city for the airline, with a military-grade airport. Home is also a profession. When the aircraft hit the water, it became, in concept, several badly damaged boats with souls onboard. I refuse to comment on events leading to the in-air collision, but in the water, I do my best to understand and explain. It’s a rare miracle to revive someone who has drowned in ice-cold water. What presented itself to water rescuers the night of the plane crash was a lethal cocktail: Blunt Force, Drowning, Hypothermia. In contrast to New York or most maritime cities, DC does not have a large contingent of private vessels, relying instead on Police and Coast Guard assets. I of course fret the course of action taken within the first hour, the only hour that a rescue operation would plausible save lives, with the three mechanisms of death each claiming a stake in the “golden hour”. Maybe the right steps were taken, but I just don’t have the answers right now. The Coast Guard saying that “you have to go out, but you don’t have to come back” doesn’t apply anymore. A commanding officer is not supposed to put their subordinates at undue risk. (For that matter, going to a standard gun range, or donning a firefighting suit, are considered high risk activities). Were the junior officers and senior enlisted trained well enough, and familiar enough with their own capabilities, to take high risk independent action? To this point, our Military Sealift Command ships have civilian rescue swimmers. While the ships master has “overriding authority”, the rescue swimmer’s determination is given the greatest weight on whether or not to attempt a rescue. In conclusion, I hope that those involved in the water rescue can rest well at night, knowing that they did the most good.